Re: Scratch buffer annoyance

1. provide a variable to prevent automatic saving of the *scratch*
buffer when you exit;

Can we implement this as a minor mode, which could be used for other
buffers as well? That way, users could define further persistent
buffers that would exist across Emacs sessions. I'd find that useful.

2. provide a variable to set the *scratch* buffer's initial major
mode

to lisp-interaction-mode.

`initial-major-mode' already exists and does just that.

Indeed, the initial-scratch-message says `This buffer
is for notes you don't want to save ...' and the buffer is in
lisp-interaction-mode.

I just don't get why people would take "notes" in lisp-interaction-mode.
Mathias Dahl wrote:

Another popular editor, vim, seems to work just like that. No way I
can edit as a new user of vim without following the on-screen
instructions.

Is that a good thing? I don't think so.
Alfred M Szmidt wrote:

That message could be in the scratch buffer, just like for the
splash-screen. Infact, inhibit-splash-screen would become unnecessary
with this scheme, the splash-screen would be *scratch*. One could
then have a inhibit-read-only-splash-screen variable that people could
flip to get what is the current behaviour.

Why so complicated? Perhaps one could show an empty buffer that has
buffer-offer-save set to t and leave *scratch* the way it is. People
would then stop using *scratch* for important stuff that should
really be saved, but they could start writing right away.

In Aquamacs, we don't display a splash screen, but we display the GNU
message and copyrights in the Echo area. People get a *scratch*
buffer in text-mode with buffer-offer-save. I think this gets the
message across and still allows people to begin their work. But
displaying an empty buffer as described before might be even better,
if one really doesn't like the idea of a persistent scratch pad.